Tag: needverse

351 – Don’t Wait to Shine

God has a plan for great and glorious things. Our brains aren’t capable of imagining how good things can actually be—even though we can imagine things being much better, if we would only open our minds to the possibility. Things will be unimaginably amazing in the future, in the next lifetime that will last through Eternity. But, things could be much better now. It’s all about what level of happiness we are willing to settle for.

Several things hold us back from being better off, whether shame or amusement.

We often get distracted by mediocre entertainment, thus robbing ourselves of a much happier life. Most of the world’s problems—including pollution and abuse of natural resources—wouldn’t be possible if people refused to settle for amusement as their solution to boredom. But, too many “sheeple” are satisfied to crawl out of bed, go off to a job or school they hate, and return home to a hypnotic video screen until they are tranquilized into sleep, just to do it all over again the next day. If no one in the West was addicted to videos, games, and video games, there wouldn’t be starvation anywhere in the world.

Whose fault is it that children are starving in India during an age when private companies launch their own space ships? It’s the fault of the teenager who won’t look up from his mobile phone and study something that can make a difference—who grows old, but doesn’t grow up to set a good example for the next generation. It’s the fault of the adults, mentors, parents, and teachers who don’t welcome each other’s help to figure out how to get it through to young people that we were created by God for bigger and better things, not just to be entertained.

For those who aspire to more in life, the giant in our path is “Shame”. We don’t want to sing unless we are the best birds in the woods. But, to humankind, all birds sing beautifully. Shine your little light now. Give hope, especially proving we don’t need to be perfect before we begin; we need to begin in order to make the world perfect.

350 – We Need Judges So We Can Be Fair to Our Enemies

God’s morals are for God and God alone to enforce. He gave His morals in clean and no uncertain terminology. But, no one becomes a judge above his fellow man by knowing God’s moral law anymore than by being a law school student. God alone writes the laws that govern Life’s course and God alone judges each and every one of us for how much life we cultivate by complying with His laws.

In society and family, even in business, we need judges to navigate us through murky waters toward justice. We need someone to speak with authority to pronounce a verdict and exact a punishment. We need injustice brought to finality so wrongs may cease and discussion may end rightly. Judges do not only condemn, they explain through “opinions of the court”.

Without judges, society, family, and business break down. Judgment is so important that courts are often the first branch of government society raises up in regions of anarchy. It was the first office in Israel, even before there was any king.

God calls everyone to exercise “good judgment”—not to appoint ourselves judges above our peers, but to practice and improve methods of giving justice and fairness to those around us. When God judges us at the Great White Throne Judgment, ushering in Eternity after, He will judge us individually by our ability to be “unofficial judges” in the small things of day-to-day life with each other. We will answer for our morals, for our choices, for our love, and for our ability to exercise good judgment.

Jesus considered it a matter of justice when he said, “Love your enemies.” He meant that we should have affection and positive emotion for our enemies, but he also meant that we must give justice to our enemies. While God has rules and morals we try our best to understand and conform to, it is the duty of the Christian to give justice to others without making God’s moral code a prerequisite to receiving justice.

Justice is fair to those who aren’t fair. “Justice” is no excuse to strongarm others into obeying any moral code. Giving justice includes being fair with everyone you deem immoral.

349 – Four Seasons in Christian Life

There are many seasons of Christian growth. It would be ridiculous to attempt to number them since they would be different for each person and could arguably change multiple times each day. Generically, there are a few seasons we must expect, some of these are celebrated by most Christians, some are rarely taught about, some are even scorned by the majority of Sunday morning Bible teachers.

When a person first comes to grips with the reality of God and Jesus, there is a basic learning phase. This includes becoming familiar with the Bible, godliness, and Jesus’s command to love one another as we love ourselves. This season is exciting, energetic, and comes with “bratty”, bad manners and daily “epiphanies” (that other Christians already know). In a sense it’s like being a snot-nosed child all over again. Enjoy it while it lasts for you; be patient and excited with other people while it lasts for them.

Another season is “dryness”, when we don’t seem to feel God at all—at all. CS Lewis wrote “I have never for one moment been in a state of mind to which even the imagination of serious pain was less than intolerable.” Medieval Christians called this season “The dark night of the soul”. It’s normal. Mine lasted about 15 years. In the end, it became nearly impossible to make me sad.

Less celebrated is the season of solitude, when God takes a Christian away from nearly all—if not absolutely all—other Christians. This can be imprisonment, persecution, or difficult life circumstances. “Established” Sunday morning groups will usually scorn these people, basically invalidating their own legitimacy since their purpose is to help people learn about God, while some lessons require absolute solitude.

The last phase listed here is almost unheard of: “Sending out”. The Church—all Christians everywhere—is unhealthy if Christians stay put forever. At some point we need to travel, visit, write letters, somehow reach to others over distance. Too often, “travel” is misinterpreted by Sunday morning establishments as “rebellion”, but if those congregations celebrated the desire to have wider fellowship, Christians in this phase would be able to lead the overall Church to more maturity and happiness.

343 – No One Is Perfect, So What?

No one is perfect. You aren’t perfect. I’m not perfect. None of your teachers, mentors, or roll models will ever be perfect. You will be an imperfect role model, teacher, leader, mentor—you already have been whether you know how or not.

Being “not perfect” is universal. But, being universally imperfect isn’t an excuse to be as imperfect as possible. Many leaders make excuses for themselves saying, “No one is perfect,” but they never specify exactly how imperfect people and institutions must be in order to warrant making new friends and new institutions to replace the old ones. The signatories of the Declaration of Independence certainly thought England was imperfect enough. So, how imperfect is “imperfect enough” for you to change and do a better job?

Your own imperfection means that you have an ongoing, ever-developing laundry list of problems to clean up. So, don’t make excuses, clean up after yourself. But, while you do your own laundry, never stop learning from everyone you can.

The universality of the imperfection of humanity is a double-edged sword: 1. You have your own mess to constantly clean up. 2. Learn and gain from everyone, no matter how bad; if someone’s problems make it impossible for you to gain from them, then you have every reason to look for someone else—but you still can learn from that person.

Imperfection is actually a question of whether you can put up with other people’s garbage long enough to get what you need from their help. As for you, keep your garbage to yourself as much as you can so that you help others a lot more than you annoy.

The double-edged sword of the universal imperfection of humanity comes with a sheath to keep it from injuring people: Restore sinners gently.

When you are forced to deal with someone else’s imperfection, deal gently. Don’t confront with an open blade, keep your sword in its sheath. When you must leave or fire someone, there’s no way to do it that will avoid all hurt feelings always. But, you can at least evade injury and, when your imperfect swordsmanship causes injury to others, at least don’t pour salt on the wounds you caused.

342 – It’s not Enough to Be Angry

It is remarkably, notably, strangely, and uniquely boring, unoriginal, and universal for humans in their youth to determine to be different from the generation before.

Things aren’t as good as we like them. Perhaps something truly terrible happened—which happens all too often. Or, we might just complain because things aren’t better—which is good because good parents want their children to improve the future. Whatever we decide in the earlier years of life to make different in the future, that decision makes no one special since it is instinctive for every human. Accordingly, that determination itself isn’t enough to make any difference at all.

If we want to make a difference, we must determine to do more than make a difference. Especially among poorer families in whatever country or economy of the world, many who are eagerly determined to improve things for the future never want to learn and figure out the right way—they don’t want to learn how—they presume they already know how—to make the future better than the past.

Perhaps they decide that they need a college education—or that their children need a college education. College can help, but it’s not the way for everyone’s education and there is no universal guarantee that it is one way or even a possible way to help the next generation. Parents who blindly decide their children need college in order to make life better may raise hyper-wealthy children who never go to college, but whom they alienate while trying to force them to.

Some may decide they need hard work, without a care for “smart” work. Some may decide that “innovation” is a waste, that consciously becoming fat is a healthy way to be “strong”, or some other nonsense. Usually, our emotional response about “how” to make the future better is no more than a reaction to a specific past, while the future always surprises. Past failure can warn us or fuel our resolve to improve, but it’s not enough to navigate the uncharted waters ahead.

If we want to improve the future, we must resolve to learn how improvement must be made. Getting help is vital. And, never stop learning.

341 – Forty Is Too Young to Have a Baby

Maturing takes centuries. The lifelong process of learning means that we barely get started before we grow geriatric. Unless we take drastic measures to disrupt the natural ignorance of our inborn sin, our skin will shrivel and fall off before we ever grow up.

There’s more to understanding babies than simply having them. During normal child-bearing years, we still aren’t ready to raise children. No parent can ever be perfect. Don’t wait to become perfect, don’t hold it against your parents for not being, and never, under any circumstances, allow yourself to think that you’re perfect merely for becoming a parent. While no parent is “perfect”, we can each be “ideal” by inviting others to help us along the way.

Raising children together as family helps to instill a strong work ethic and respect across generations. For millennia many Eastern cultures, from the Mediterranean through the Far East, had three generations under one roof—the grandparents raising the children while mom and dad ran the family business. In Vietnam, it’s not uncommon to become a grandparent at only 35 years old. These societies flourish because they master the art of “imperfectly ideal” parenting. Simply put, the “perfectly ideal” parents know they are not perfect and therefore welcome help.

The more children we have, the more we all learn. God created both humanity and Earth; only Satan needs a population small enough to centrally plan. If every population on Earth flourished as God commanded, we’d have more scientists and thus might have already developed the technology to colonize Mars a century ago.

Every society relies on a growing birthrate in order to survive. Over-fascination with entertainment and surrender to immorality will plunge a population into nothingness, being overwhelmed by societies that have many children. Growth and strength in family are in direct conflict with entertainment and immorality. As imperfect as everyone of us is, it helps to have fewer problems, not more. Whatever your household situation is, seek to have more help and fewer distractions.

Even fifty years old is too young to raise a family—if we try on our own. Drop the delusion of household “independence”, welcome help, then families will flourish much easier.

338 – I Didn’t Notice

You are only as big as the problems you ignore. Anything that rents free space in your mind is only bigger and stronger than you because you allow it to be.

Our problems don’t have power over us because they dominate and overwhelm us, but because it bothers us when they do. There will always be a bigger fish who eats what it wants, but you can choose whether to allow the bigger fish to get under your skin and irritate you while you should be sleeping or whether to just not notice. Sometimes it helps to remember that God’s Sovereignty means that God decides which fish are bigger and smaller. God might have sent a big, evil fish your way just so you can practice not caring.

No matter how big, strong, resourceful, or vast your obstacle may be, never give anything else the power to control your will. You are always and always will ever be responsible for your own choices. This includes your choice to be angry, regretful, or grateful. Don’t give your foes the power to select your level of happiness, they don’t deserve that much credit. This means you must also reject the lie that you must dominate foes in return before you can be happy.

Even while a larger force harasses and disturbs you, even before you bring “justice” or “hit back” or otherwise stop it from doing bad things—before you take any action at all, you can and must choose happiness in your heart. Until you do, you will never have the mental, psychological, emotional, and spiritual clarity to confront the heart of the problem. Jesus explained this by saying, “First remove the plank from your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck in your brother’s eye.”

I was driving my motorcycle down a street just after a ten minute rain. Puddles lined the road when a semi-truck-sized flatbed pulled in front of me and charged at top speed. While I passed him, I think he splashed a puddle on my shirt because it seemed a little damp when I arrived. But, I’m not sure if he did because I just didn’t notice.